


Special Girl

by ungoodpirate



Series: Shameless Femslash Week [1]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Day 1- Firsts, F/F, Post-Season 4, Shameless Femslash week, mentions of Lip/Mandy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-10
Updated: 2014-09-10
Packaged: 2018-02-16 21:35:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2285268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ungoodpirate/pseuds/ungoodpirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You know where I live,” Svetlana says like a joke as she steps out of Mandy’s room, like she hadn’t just tilted the axis of Mandy’s world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Special Girl

Mandy’s tearing apart her room when Svetlana pushes through the door without knocking.

“Why you being so loud?” Svetlana says, “Baby sleeping.”

Mandy grunts, tossing a can of Old Spice into a black trash bag she has fisted in one hand. “Sorry,” she mutters, not making eye contact.

Svetlana crosses her arms and leans against the door frame. “What you doing?” she asks critically.

“Purging my room of anything… _men_.” Mandy yanks open a dresser drawer, digs out a box of condoms, and dumps them in the trash bag.

About a month ago, Iggy got out of a short stint in prison the same time Joey came back in town and Kenyatta hasn’t been seen since. Whether dead or just scared off, Svetlana didn’t know, but she now thinks maybe her idiot husband not completely useless. Orange boy’s brother had visited Mandy a few times since, which devolved into them either fucking or swearing each other out. Last night had both.

Mandy drags the bag to the other side of her bed. She dumps out the waste basket.

“This good decision,” Svetlana says. “Men,” she shakes her head. “Not worth it.”

Mandy snorts, continues her purge: a left behind skin magazine, a crumpled pair of boxers, a single sock.

“You need help?” Svetlana says, still watching.

Mandy looks up at her, a dimple forming between her eyebrows as she looks at the other woman confused. “No,” she says.

Svetlana shrugs, drops her crossed arms.

“Did you want something else?” Mandy says, standing straight. “I’ll be fucking quiet, okay?” She ties a knot with the loose top of the bag, then slides her phone out of her pocket and stares hard at the screen.

Svetlana takes a step in. “Why do you keep seeing that Mouth boy?”

Mandy looks up sharp. “What?”

Svetlana repeats herself.

Mandy curls up a dark eyebrow. “You mean Lip?”

Svetlana rolls her hand in a nonchalant wave. This detail is inconsequential.

“I don’t know,” Mandy mutters. She swipes her thumb across the phone screen, looks longing at it again. “He’s better to me than anyone else.”

Svetlana scoffs. “He calls you very mean names for being better.”

Mandy looks up again.

“You shout, I hear!”

Mandy puts a hand on her hip. “No offense, but I don’t think I should be taking relationship advice from you.”

Svetlana isn’t cowed by such a watered-down insult. She’s faced real threats in her lifetime. This isn’t even a mosquito in comparison.

She steps further in the room

…

Mandy slides through a few photos on the phone, of her and Lip, or just Lip, and kinda feels sick to her stomach. She doesn’t notice Svetlana is right in front of her until she’s taking the phone out of her hands and tossing it on the bed.

“Hey –” she starts, and having let Svetlana off easy earlier makes Mandy ready to boil over with curses.

Then Svetlana tucks a strand of hair behind Mandy’s ear with the gentlest fingers.

“You’re special girl. You need someone who treat you special.”

“What’re you doing?” Mandy has never stood this close to Svetlana before. She’s never talked this long to Svetlana before.

Svetlana tilts her head, smiles. “Has anyone ever called you beautiful?”

“Sure,” Mandy says.

Svetlana shakes her head. “Not sexy. Not hot. Beautiful.”

Mandy’s brain buzzes, and she can’t think of a particular instance. If by anyone, by Ian, but not like this. With someone staring at her so intently, playing with the ends of her hair.

Svetlana lays her hand flat on the front of Mandy’s shoulder; half of it lands on the skin revealed by the scoop of Mandy’s shirt. She takes a breath like electric.

“You are beautiful,” Svetlana says. “And special. Strong.” She ducks her head in, and Mandy knows where this is going. She’s been doing this shit for as long as she can remember. She doesn’t have a reputation for nothing. But then Svetlana does another thing that surprises her, she pauses, part way leaned in. Mandy can’t read her expression, too close to be seen, but she swears she sees the corner of Svetlana’s mouth turn up as Mandy doesn’t pull away or push her away. Mandy’s stunned, but she’s taken action in less time – have to be aware and fast and reactive in this neighborhood – and this time she doesn’t.

Svetlana fills the space, completes the charge, connecting their lips in a short kiss that’s the most complicated one in Mandy’s life. When Svetlana pulls back, Mandy leans in, following her.

Svetlana puts the pad of her thumb on Mandy’s bottom lip. “Special,” she repeats.

Mandy’s stomach is again unsettled, but in a different way. And she’s not sure what’s next, because kissing had always been the lead in to what guys really wanted from her. Never a kiss for the sake of a kiss.

But Svetlana isn’t pursuing anything else, and hasn’t touched anything but shoulder, hair, ear, lips.

Yevgeny wails in the other room, and Svetlana lowers her arm reluctantly.

“You know where I live,” Svetlana says like a joke as she steps out of Mandy’s room, like she hadn’t just tilted the axis of Mandy’s world.

The door’s left open, and Yevgeny’s loud when he does decide to fuss, and the living room is not so far from her room that Mandy can’t pretend not to overhear Svetlana singing something in Russian to her child.

Mandy presses her fingers to her lips, lightly, not rough or hard, bruising or scratching. She closes her eyes and remembers the feeling again and again.


End file.
